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pilgrimage

pilgrimage
In movement,
in genuflection of curved air
         they remember
the bodies of children,
closed eyes lit by notes
          of lost song
curved silent
                   reflection
curve again -
into vaulted space, shadows dance across
trappings of failed religions, question
bleached impressions of icons - remnants
of a first forgiveness,
                                          a last confession,

the second and last coming defined in
turned tone
                  genuflection


turn again -
into the morning where
                            ash road patterns
pass windmills brooding, like vacant crosses
on the Appian Way but they dance forward
through a sea of corn, centurion stalk-spears
threatening,
                                                                     questioning
where do you take
                                your rhythms?
                which of you
                                is the leader?

what truths
               do you hope to find?
The sun with all its power to gift life, deny days
or quicken death, blesses motion repeated
               by the dancers, arouses the grain husk wind
to lift dust to
                          camouflage their hearts.
Keepers of movement - 
be our futures, 
remember us,
               embrace our past of
danced rhythmic

                    inquisition
dance again -
at the rise of the moon to guide feet
on journeys deemed impossible in sun’s glare
where rhythm must be light for footsteps,
in darkness to outline gestures, the fusion
               of phosphorous and vaulted moon.
Dancers understand steps
              they choose,
know where paths will
                              take them,
to where journeys
               demand breath, poise,
& silent space at its solemn velvet edge,
to where feet stop memories dissolving
one by one, eyes open, finding lost song,
turning our pasts, one by one
turn again
                  dancers
      &
return to the path
    for in tomorrow’s trinity,
silent reflection,
    tone genuflection,
    rhythmic inquisition
will return in movement
                                         again
Jim Mackintosh